Box Seats: Redskins

Love him or hate him, Clinton Portis&rsquo; departure from the Washington Redskins is the end of an era. Brought in with an enormous bang of hype and expectation, this quiet and tame departure seems sadly too fitting. In the end,...

To the surprise of no one, the Redskins released Clinton Portis today. The logical, rational part of me can say that it was the right thing to do. Portis hasn&rsquo;t played much the last two seasons, and he&rsquo;s not worth...

I have wasted large chunks of the last couple of days hunting through mock NFL drafts around the Internet. Now, mock drafts are a pretty silly idea, and grading them &ndash; who guessed best? &ndash; is even sillier. But being...

On Sunday, I watched live as Jay Cutler got HAMMERED on Twitter during the second half of the NFC Championship game. Just killed. The general consensus was that Cutler was soft, heartless, gutless and any number of other unpleasant things....

With the completion of the Divisional Round, the NFL playoffs are halfway over. Even though the Redskins haven&rsquo;t had a legitimate shot at the playoffs since week 12, there are still some former Redskins lurking around the playoffs on other...

Welcome to my first 2011 NFL mock draft. In all actuality, this is probably the third one I&rsquo;ve done so far this season so I could have some hope for the Redskins future, but this is the first one I&rsquo;ve...

I learned an interesting tidbit last week: since Robert Kraft took over ownership of the New England Patriots seventeen years ago, the Patriots have been to the playoffs twelve times. That&rsquo;s 70 percent of the time, which is impressive even...

&ldquo;So, the off-season is here. Lots to do. We climbed from 4-12 to 6-10 in my first year, but at that rate we&rsquo;ll just be 8-8 next year, and the fans will be calling for my head. Still, I think...

Nine months. Three quarters of a year, the length of a school year, the duration of the human prenatal process, and the next time you&rsquo;ll see the Washington Redskins play a football game that matters. First and foremost, a big...

Sunday&rsquo;s match-up against the New York Football Giants marks the final contest of the season for our Washington Redskins, and perhaps the final contest of the year for the Giants. It will most likely be the last time we associate...

An underperfoming offensive-minded coach. Embarrassing losses within the division. Dan Snyder getting fed up and firing people. A new, experienced head coach coming in to save the day. Sure, I could be describing last year, but I&rsquo;m actually talking about...

Well done, good&nbsp;show, and a splendid effort by the Washington Redskins! No one was cooler than Jacksonville Head Coach Jack Del Rio, sporting his shades and black leather jacket on the sidelines, but no one was hotter than Rex Grossman...

The Good The patched-together defense. There were a lot of unfamiliar faces out there, but the defense played its best game in weeks. Graham Gano. Yes, the guy I call "Graham Ga-oh-no" won the game plus had a long field...

After watching the Redskins battle the Cowpies on Sunday a slew of memories, emotions, and trivial facts came rushing back. It then became clear to me, for the first time this season, why Mike Shanahan was the right man to...

Up in Connecticut where I live, the Redskins-Cowboys game was not televised. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!&nbsp; Remember when the whole country would always get this one? When across America, people who had never been to either Dallas or...

So... the new quarterback of your Washington Redskins is Rex &ldquo;The Sex Cannon&rdquo; Grossman. Now that the shock has (almost) worn off, here are the two ways to look at it. The Positive Way If you don&rsquo;t think that McNabb...

The other day on Redskins Insider, Jason Reid posted that the Redskins are the league's only cold-weather team without an indoor practice facility. I hadn't known this. He further noted that when meteorological conditions turn foul, the team often practices...

Wade Phillips is gone. So is Tatalia, Barzini, the heads of all the five families. A bit of remembrance before crucifying his replacement... First thing I'll miss is Wade's sense of humor: when he told his players to get their...

Losing in the final seconds, at home, on a botched extra point, in a game that didn&rsquo;t really matter, against one of the few teams with a worse 2009 record, feels like getting kicked in the ribs with steel-toed boots...

When I started this blogging gig, I asked the WaPo overlords what they wanted us to do. They said two things: a) be a fan; and b) don&rsquo;t identify yourself as a Washington Post reporter. Fair enough. So, here&rsquo;s this...

As a law professor, I find myself drawn naturally to the legal aspects of the dispute between Albert Haynesworth and the Redskins. The team has suspended Haynesworth for the remainder of the season. Presumably he will pursue a grievance. To...

After twelve games and a disappointing 5-7 record, we&rsquo;re right back where we started. Instead of focusing on football, we&rsquo;re focusing on a player who didn&rsquo;t even suit up last Sunday. It&rsquo;s rarely a sign of rejoicing when the attention...

Tonight the Caps take on the Maple Leafs, and I&rsquo;ve been thinking a lot lately of the parallels between the Leafs and our own local football team. Both squads have extremely rabid fanbases and huge media conglomerates that hang on...

I've used the "Good, the bad and the ugly" bit a few times to recap Redskins games this year. I'd use it again, but I honestly can't think of anything to put into the "good" category. Let me start looking....

I have extra bias against Eli Manning. Not only am I a Redskins fan, but I live in San Diego, and people in San Diego HATE Eli Manning. This is significant because people in San Diego don't really hate...

&ldquo;So, let&rsquo;s see. I took this job promising to turn the franchise around. How&rsquo;s my first year been so far? I&rsquo;m 5-6. The guys were 4-12 last year, so this is obviously progress. The Redskins fans hate the Cowboys, and...

So, okay, what everybody says is true. We&rsquo;re a work in progress. It&rsquo;s a rebuilding year. Choose your clich&eacute;. The point is, the future isn&rsquo;t now. Cast blame where you will. The Redskins are not a very good football team,...

Blegh. Finding a hair in your food, cable going in and out, your CD skipping on your favorite song, all pretty much sum up this season. It hasn&rsquo;t been terrible, but it&rsquo;s been far from good. Anything should be better...

Look no further than our own defensive coordinator, Jim Haslett, if you&rsquo;re curious about the "Interim Coach Effect." In 2008, Haslett was named the interim coach of the St. Louis Rams after Scott Linehan&rsquo;s firing for beginning the season 0-4....

Redskins fans may think they&rsquo;ve been through a lot this year. Ugly losses, getting Vicked on national television, Rex Grossman - but it&rsquo;s nothing compared to what Vikings fans have had to deal with. My in-laws live in South Dakota...

Expect the unexpected. Graham Gano went from goat to gloat when he knocked in the game-winning overtime field goal after chunking a terrible effort at the end of regulation. This only reaffirms my sentiment of loathing kickers. Except Mark Moseley....

The Good Getting back to the old routine. The Redskins went back to their typical game of the season -- a low-scoring game with a last-second win. Last week must have been an anomaly (but dang, what an anomaly). Brandon...

What a week! Leave it to an embarrassing loss on national television to jar everything loose and get all the emotions spinning like exorcized heads. I hate to say it, but a fan getting angry at Dan Snyder is the...

I made a fantastic decision this past weekend. I decided that I had too much work to make the trip from Connecticut to Washington to see the Eagles game. I gave my season tickets to friends. When I turned on...

Things I would rather see than last night&rsquo;s Monday Night Massacre. Cheney 2012. Rocky 7. Rambo 5. Caps-Pens Game 7 in 2008. The insides of an Afghan cave. A picnic with the Donner party. Babies crying. Any emergency room on...

Thanks to the miracle of Twitter, I have a written record of the trava-shamockery that was Monday. Follow along as I slip into a spiral of despair and mockery... 1:44 PM: &ldquo;One things is for sure - McNabb no longer...

The Redskins and Eagles rivalry appears to be gaining some momentum, considering both teams have never been competitive at the same time. Back in the day we could look through the schedule and notch four wins next to the Eagles...

Since the Redskins had a bye week, I took a bye week as well. I didn&rsquo;t really watch any of the games on Sunday. I did my best to ignore the swirling winds of craziness surrounding the Redskins. I tried...

Washington&rsquo;s bye-week actually came at the ideal time this season. A bye-week too early in the year might not rest any of the players and could further set back a team trying to find its groove. A bye-week too late...

By Evan Bliss Life is lived forwards and understood backwards, as Kierkegaard wrote, and I can only hope at the end of this season to understand what has transpired here. I&rsquo;m all too familiar with the Redskin Roller Coaster, available...

By Stephen L. Carter My most painful moment as a Redskins fan came on November 15, 1970. I was an eleventh grader in Ithaca, New York, a town where nearly everybody rooted for the Giants. That Sunday, the two teams...

By Evan Bliss Have I missed something here? Is Vegas really favoring the Lions by 3 over the Redskins? Is this creatively brilliant or positively insane? What is a horseshoe? Are there any horse socks? I only gamble when I...

By Evan Bliss The walkway to the U.S. Capitol Rotunda should be renamed &lsquo;DeAngelo Hall&rsquo;. Intercepting Jay Cutler four times tying an NFL record, bringing one back for a pick-six, and leading the defense in tackles (7), is more than...

By Stephen L. Carter Over the years, many Redskins fans have bemoaned the strength of the division in which the team plays, suggesting that, with a different set of opponents, Washington might have notched better records. And although this year&rsquo;s...

By Jason Woodmansee Two off-seasons ago, pouty quarterback extraordinaire Jay Cutler and new crazy man coach of the Denver Broncos, Josh McDaniel, decided that Mile High wasn&rsquo;t big enough for the both of them. Cutler was placed on the trade...

By Evan Bliss In honor of the &lsquo;wonderful&rsquo; former Cowboy color commentators that grace us with their profound observations and trips down memory lane, I&rsquo;ve decided that the tv will be on mute, and the i-pod will be at peak...

By Evan Bliss Worse than losing is being okay with the loss. Chris Cooley summed it up better than anyone after the Houston overtime loss, suggesting that he felt as if he&rsquo;d wasted a week of his life. That&rsquo;s how...

By Jason Woodmansee The Good: The effort. The Redskins played the defending AFC Champions right down to the end. They got turnovers, made key plays, and almost pulled this off. But seriously -- these guys are going to kill me....

By Jason Woodmansee [Before I even start, I need to recognize the brilliant efforts of the Washington Post&rsquo;s own Dan Steinberg, who had the guts to ask Coach Shanahan and the players about the white pants they wore last week....

By Evan Bliss Here&rsquo;s the thing. On one hand, I really enjoy Peyton Manning&rsquo;s persona. His SNL appearance excelled beyond all expectations, joining the ranks of a classic Hanks, Baldwin, or Walken set with the United Way faux-mercial by far...

By Jason Woodmansee The Good: First and foremost, it was a win. As London Fletcher said, "This isn't a game we would have won a year ago, a month ago or maybe even two weeks ago." The Redskins may be...

By Evan Bliss 109 yards is all Clinton Portis needs to become the 25th player in NFL history to reach 10,000 rushing yards.&nbsp;The closest active player is Kansas City&rsquo;s Thomas Jones who needs 566 yards, but he has been in...

By Evan Bliss The more I think about yesterday&rsquo;s sublimely disgusting win, the more my head spins around in circles and pea soup shoots out of my nose. There was some strange brew on the field, off the field, and...

By Evan Bliss In the spirit of mixing it up, this week&rsquo;s pre-gamer is a bit special. I&rsquo;ve interviewed an Eagles fan, a friend of mine (excluding Sundays) that is originally from Philadelphia: Jason Mattis. I asked the obvious questions...

By Stephen L. Carter I am struck by all the speculation this past week about how Philadelphia fans will greet Donovan McNabb this Sunday. The consensus among reporters seems to be that they will boo him roundly, either because he...

By Evan Bliss First, congratulations to Sam Bradford for earning his first win as a pro quarterback. Second, thanks to the Rams for not running the score up by being overcautious with Steven Jackson. Yup, it could've been much worse...

By Jason Woodmansee As a Redskins fan, there are two paths one could take after this awful loss. Option 1 - The glass is half full. Listen, it&rsquo;s game 3 of a season with a new coach, new QB, and...

By Stephen L. Carter For the past several years, Gregg Easterbrook, who writes the popular Tuesday Morning Quarterback blog for ESPN, has been criticizing coaches who too readily decide to punt or kick field goals on fourth-and-short in the opponent&rsquo;s...

By Evan Bliss A new week, a new test. Week 1: Dallas had the NFL&rsquo;s 2nd ranked offense in 2009. Week 2: Houston had the 4th ranked offense in 2009. Week 3: St. Louis boasts one of the best managers...

By Evan Bliss Attention and excitement shifts from last week&rsquo;s final-play victory over division nemesis Dallas to that other team in Texas, the Texans. Didn&rsquo;t overthink the whole &ldquo;team-naming thing&rdquo; I suppose. Oddly enough, the Skins have quite a bit...

By Evan Bliss If you&rsquo;re lined up against a 260 pound 6&rsquo;4&rdquo; hulk of a man mountain that&rsquo;s younger, faster, and stronger than you, what do you do? Alex Barron&rsquo;s answer was &ldquo;cheat.&rdquo; Good thing the Skins didn&rsquo;t have the...